Where the Dead are Buried
by helebette
Summary: A mildly frightening story set in 1900. Swan Queen AU. Regina owns a farmhouse outside of Boston and Emma goes to work for her.
1. Chapter 1

I arrived at the farmhouse on June 14th, 1901. It was midday and the sun was hot. I had walked for much of the distance after the man I paid for the journey refused to enter within a mile of the place.

The house looked silent and forlorn despite the good weather. As I walked up the pale brown dirt that he small porch that led to the stables, I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder. I was wearing a pair of trousers, suspenders and a large shirt I'd bought cheaply from an Irish boy down the street from me in Boston. My long blonde hair was tucked beneath my cap and although I earned a glance or two along the way, I was left mostly alone. I usually only dressed this way for travel, to avoid attention.

I paused at the south-west corner of the house. Its front door, all encased in shadows was in need of washing. The sunlight revealed dust and webbing up and down the exterior of the long, tall windows on the eastern side.

The mistress of this manor obviously had no staff or family member to help her. I had answered a call for such employment and had also made the potentially made the grave error of pretending that I could cook as well as clean.

Nevertheless, I had duties far more pressing than the ironing of knickers or the soaping of windows, and I had to pull this one off.

She came walking soon after I stepped foot onto the property from some place back by the stables. My first impressions of Regina Mills pertained solely to her looks I must admit. I had no clue if she was the fiend that people in Boston claimed or if she had done the things they claimed she'd done. I did know that she was striking—really quite beautiful—with dark, nearly black, hair and deep brown eyes. Her lips were full and naturally crimson and her figure slim. I must have looked too long because she sighed impatiently.

"You're a woman. Why did you tell me otherwise?" Were her first words to me.

I had my whole story all laid out and while I had fed some of it to her in my letters, I had to rush to jam more of it in before she sent me off. She looked like a woman for whom time and the ticking of minutes meant a great deal. "I saw that your call was for a young man, but I needed the job, quite badly. I've got a mother that's ill and a brother that…"

She waved it off, obviously immune to such sentiment.

"I don't care." She started, walking carefully down the steps. "I don't care if your family is in need of the money for some silly thing or other. What I care about is being lied to." Her eyes roamed up and down, taking in my clothes and my figure. I looked strong enough, even in oversized items such as these, and she seemed to take note of it. "Start there." She gestured to the stables where I heard the rustling and snorting of horses for the first time.

All right then, mucking the stalls isn't glamorous work, but it's something I can do. Those few hours bought me the next month at that place. Which is good, because had I been sent away on that first day, I would have been killed…

As it turned out, Miss Mills, ever generous out of absolute boredom with her wealth, offered me twice the sum originally in her employment advertisement. Only, of course, to find that my cooking skills were nothing to write about. I tried to smile when she pushed the burned eggs away and glared.

She reassigned me. Who knows why. I was shown to the guest room on the first floor and told that other parts of the house would be locked by night. I was given the task of washing floors and windows first. Then I had to run errands for her, taking the horse and carriage into town on my second day of work.

The story goes on and on like that. For those first few weeks I worked myself to the bone. I also watched her, this Mills woman.

You see I wasn't (quite obviously I suppose) there to clean her damned curtains.

I was there to investigate the disappearances of the Cora and Henry Mills the year before.

You see Regina's mum and dad fell into some abyss and were never seen again. Regina inherited their fortune and some lawyers in Boston set about to take it from her. That part I never really understood. It had something to do with a cousin who felt slighted. Either way, I got hired to do the dirty work I always do.

I don't want to brag, but I can usually tell a liar the second he and she speaks a word. And Regina Mills was some liar all right. Though what exactly she was lying about, I did not know for some time.

We didn't speak much in those first few weeks, except when I had some chore to do or Regina wanted to make small talk over dinner about the things we might need. Regina seemed sort of lonely to me. She always had something to do around the house or in the large yard. And since she was quite alone for much of the time, she wore what she felt like wearing which is to say she dressed really quite oddly for a woman. Her dresses were nearly scandalous—high cut on the thigh and low on the breast. She never had any gentlemen callers and didn't seem to care that I looked at her from time to time. It made me wonder if the hire she had tried to make—of a young man in need of room and board—had more to it than just wanting a chef. But then I thought again about even that, because it became more and more obvious that Regina preferred her solitude.

By night she read and read and read from a room where the books were piled knee deep all around. She seemed embarrassed when I tripped over such a pile on my way in to bring her a cup of tea—which to be honest, happened a lot.

She often dressed in the evenings as though we might have company. We never did, but she would go to great lengths to clean and prepare herself after a long day of labor. She had a bathtub upstairs, larger than the one-person metal container my family had shared growing up. I would heat water for her while I prepared dinner and when she came back downstairs, she would lay out dinnerware in an orderly fashion.

Still, she really did need a bloody chef and I began to feel sort of guilty about the matter. I started asking around when I went into the city for supplies. Some of the ladies would give me ideas for feeding the man in my life, whoever he might be. I learned a mutton dish that neither of us liked so I never made it again. But then asked about the thing that Regina seemed most fond of. It involved a little bit of fish from the nearby river, some red tomato all crushed up, a few other things including a little of the shelled creatures I hated to buy because if the heat got to them you'd throw up half your stomach—oh and some of these exotic spices that made my mouth feel like it was on fire.

"You'll get used to it." She often said when we ate things with those peppery flakes. We had taken to eating together at the massive table that took up half the dining area. For the first week I tried to eat quickly, standing up or on the run, so that the owner of the house could have her meals in peace. Regina made me sit down and at least make casual conversation. I figured it was a good way to learn more about her and to find a few more clues about the murders of her parents.

The house was dark and closed up once the sun went down. Regina had a peculiar habit of throwing shutters on all the windows and locking the doors with massive posts that I found excessive. My job before dusk fell, was to secure the stables with massive metal locks and an odd silver thread Regina insisted upon for superstitious reasons. She said the horses' disposition would be improved by silver. I'd never heard of such a thing. Again, a job is a job, so I did what I was told.

I sometimes roamed the house at night, claiming boredom and a need to plan my chores for the next day. My fingers would run lightly along old photographs encased in black bindings. The Mills family could afford photographs, it seemed, only very recently in their family line. How they had come by their money began to seem a mystery worth solving in itself.

On the first floor of the house was the kitchen and the dining area with its massive fireplace and table and little else. It looked almost as though one could cook a meal over the fire and drag it right to the table.

When I walked up the first row of stairs, I would arrive at a door that was locked tight. In that hallway were Regina's rooms and her parents' rooms. Around the corner was another set of stairs leading to the third floor. Every room on that floor was kept perfectly neat, with fresh linens and blankets, and Regina herself originally did most of the work to keep it free of dust and spiders' webs. On that floor was a sewing room that I honestly never bothered to look at except to tidy. I can't sew worth a damn and Regina's projects seemed harmless enough.

One night, I wandered up to the sewing room and made mental notes of the floor boards. Were there any that had become shifted? I checked, in an idle and bored sort of way. Searching for evidence of Regina's parents' murders was turning up little. The police had already swept, of course, but no signs of the missing couple were found.

The only reason I was convinced about Regina's guilt was because—to be quite honest—I'd known someone just like her once. Back in Boston, when I was a small girl, the spinster who lived along with her father across the street from my family just up and murdered him one day. They said that unmarried women sometimes went like that—that madness snuck up on them easiest.

And how could Regina Mills be anything but unhappy and perhaps even a little mad, living in that big house all alone.

Besides, there was the story of her parents' fortune. If money isn't a motivation for dastardly deeds then I don't know what is.

Still, I could find nothing proving my rather lazy theory. I felt the walls, even knocked from time to time for hollowed places, and traced my steps to the sewing room.

When I glanced inside, the darkness must have played some trick with me, because I could have sworn I saw a man standing and staring in. Just standing, like he was on legs as tall as the house itself! His eyes seemed to be rimmed with red and they looked all watery.

I screamed. I couldn't help it! Moments later I heard Regina's footsteps on the stairs, hard and fast and then suddenly she was bursting past me and slamming the door behind her. I heard her curse and I heard something fall and then I heard silence.

The door flew open moments later and her eyes—angry and narrowed and dark as night in a room lit only by moonlight—bore into me.

"You forgot the shutters up here." She was angry at that and hastily jammed the wood against the window frame.

That was the thing, the shutters—they went inside the windows. Some storm windows, I often thought, for they were useless as such. If the rain hit hard enough and for long enough outside, it could leak into the dwelling.

"Here, look. This must have startled you." She rattled a bent steel frame she had. Upon it were some old men's clothes that she had been sewing for herself.

"What do you need those for?"

She blushed. I could see it. And though I was wearing my usual dark red (almost brown) dress, I fingered the material of the pants and wanted those instead.

"Dressing for chores. I admired the ease with which you work in your clothing and wanted the same for myself." Regina shrugged and swiped at a cheek that was still warm.

From then on, I saw the long dresses and pinching corsets made way for loose buttoned pants and men's shirts—at least by day I mean. The first time I saw Regina dressed like that, I nearly laughed. Turns out she didn't care how I looked on that first meeting. Turns out she liked it.

Another night, not long after that odd illusion in the window, Regina dressed up in something new. It was something she had sewn and it was beyond anything I had ever seen before.

"Are you going out?" She wore a black long dress with red and lacings and a corset that lifted her and encased her so beautifully…well….

I must have stared and stared because she put down her book roughly and frowned at me.

"I made it myself." Her voice was tinged with embarrassment—which was absurd because the dress was beautiful and it made her skin seem even more perfect than it always looked. Regina was olive and tanned where I was pale and pink and I often found myself wondering strangely about how we'd look side by side.

When I realized what it was I was really thinking, I grew warm and my hands became damp.

"I should get to bed." I feigned a yawn then stared at the book in my lap with shame.

I don't know if it was something she ate or something I said, but she looked tired then. Almost sad or—well I don't know what it was.

"Do you need anything else?" I asked the question innocently, I swear, but the way she looked at me made me wonder. Wonder what, I don't know, at that time I was still to nervous to admit it.

"No. I need nothing. Good night." Her words were whispered and faint and they made my chest ache. I wanted to ask if something might be wrong. I don't know why. I knew I still had rounds to make—there was a three foot gap between a doorframe and the room itself that made no sense in one of the rooms upstairs and I wanted to check that out. Nothing came of it—I figured the extra space must have been storage at one time—and I regretted leaving so soon.

Sleep did not come easy to me that night. I heard Regina walk to her room moments after I went up to the attic. The attic, you see, was empty but it held crevices and nooks for just about anything a person might hide. And I had so little to report to the men in Boston. I had to find something or else they might not pay me my second installment. Anyway, I found nothing, as usual, and so made my way down dark stairways to my room.

The next night, just to say, she had on this bright blue frock with a black lacing around the waist and neck. The cut was low and revealed an inch of skin and a beating pulse that I stared at for far too long. I startled her in fact. "Remind me again," She asked in that low, suspicious tone I hadn't heard since I first arrived. "Remind me—what time of day did you walk up my pathway?"

"High noon." I delivered the information with an inquisitive tone. I had no bloody clue about her worries. I just really liked her dress. Perhaps I liked it too much.

In noticing the cut of her dress and the talents of her seamstress's fingers—long and slender but strong and blunt—I started to notice other things about her.

She was unusually strong. That was one thing. She also had a regal sort of bump on her nose. I noticed it when we dug together in the garden one early morning. Also her hands were soft though she worked with them often. I noticed odd and disjointed things like this about her more and more as the days went by. I began to wonder if I needed some time away. The country air and isolation were making me light in the head most likely. Regina would read of news in Boston and look a little wistful herself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2. **

One afternoon Regina went off to do her mysterious little project and stayed out there until nearly dusk. The night before, she had been spooked by something in the newspaper. Whatever it was, it inspired her to work hard and eat very little for days.

On the second day, she looked panicked when she emerged and nearly ran to the house to start her evening routine.

The next day was a repeat of that first one. And the day after that repeated itself as well.

I began to worry on the fourth day. She wasn't eating, like I said, and she didn't seem to notice my presence. We were running low on supplies and I thought that I should travel to retrieve eggs (we didn't even have chickens which struck me as odd since the yard was so large) and potatoes. But Regina insisted that I stay. She said that travel was dangerous as of late.

On the fifth day, I was fed up. I was bored. So I tried my hand at making bread—which went almost as well as the ladies in the city had warned me it would. After I threw out the first two attempts, the third was a success. It was mid-afternoon when I walked to Regina's shed with some butter and bread and tea.

I found her in there acting the part of a blacksmith of all things! She wore a man's shirt, all torn at the shoulders and tied at the waist and undone down the front. She had a leather covering to that but it was enormous and through the side of it I could see her skin all sweaty and rippling with effort. I could also see the curves of the sides of her breasts and my heart nearly hammered out of my chest until I had to look down at my shoes.

She seemed exhausted and as she stood to remove her apron she asked that we go somewhere else.

'Somewhere' in this instance, was a swimming hole half a mile behind the house.

Now this made me nervous. Being both women, of course this shouldn't have been an issue, but when Regina started to take her clothing off and I was given an even greater view than usual…

I froze.

I think I would have panted like a dog if she hadn't turned and glared at me as if to say 'what are you waiting for?'

A job is a job. So I took off my dress and I took off my undergarments and I tiptoed quickly behind her to splash into the water.

It was cool in the deeper part, but the edges were warm. I could hear crickets and a frog and the splashing of Regina's limbs as she floated about. My tired muscles thanked me and I dipped below again and again to cool my heated face.

The sun was still hot and I remember worrying about burning when Regina asked me,

"Tell me about the men who hired you." As though she was talking about the news or something.

The woods beyond the pond were sparse but they were still darker and quieter than the rest of the property. I looked numbly to them while Regina's question sank in.

There are times when you're weaving a great lie and you come to some kind of crossroads. You can either make the decision to keep up some pretense or you can shed it like heavy clothing at the edge of cool waters. Of course I choose the latter.

I told her everything. Why not? I wasn't going to be paid, I wasn't finding anything out about her. And the pay I received from her more than made up for my fee going the way of some new sewer line in a sprawling city block.

"So you think me a murderess?" Her tone was biting and she seemed to delight in rolling each of the words around on her tongue. With her hair slicked back and her eyes so intent on me, I felt suddenly very vulnerable. I remembered how strong she could be. I remembered how dark the trees were and they suddenly made me think of death. Were her parents back there? Were they in _here_? I stared down at the waters around me in sudden horror. My god—what if she had thrown the bodies in the pond? My stomach heaved at the thought of swimming in rot and slime and dust.

Somehow I ended up on the dry land again having splashed and panicked and thrashed about until Regina herself began to shout at me and to drag me from behind.

"Calm…" I heard the word but that was all. It was suddenly so odd that I had forgotten. Forgotten about my own parents, their demise, the watery grave at sea during that storm that only 10 of us had survived—me in a small boat while an aunt clung to me and wept. I felt Regina's hand on my back, on bare skin, her tone soothing as though she already knew my horror.

"Is that where you threw them?" I asked though I still sobbed and could not see her clearly.

"Don't be stupid." She said then. Her fingers left a trail along my backbone. I shivered. When those fingers moved lower and I felt them over my buttocks I began to shake. "You're really quite beautiful. Emma Swan. A fake name if I've ever heard one…"

Fake name or not, she still wanted me and we both knew it. May name may have been Willa Margaret, but I preferred the chosen name instead. Emma for my departed mother, and Swan for the person I should someday become.

She was seemingly over the whole name thing though. She also didn't seem to care that I'd been hired to go out there.

Her eyes were like liquid fire all over my skin. There was a moment when I thought she might take me right then and there. She seemed to know better though. Seemed to think twice about it. In fact she glanced at those dark woods again. This time she shivered. This time my hand warmed her. I turned on my side and touched her thigh and she closed her eyes, desire written all over her features.

When we returned to the house, our clothing loose in our hands and carried in front of our bodies like shields, something changed. I grew more nervous as the ominous shape with its gaping door and all-seeing windows loomed before us. Regina grew almost angry. She glared at the house as though it held some affront, some insult to her name.

"I wish not to be closed up tightly inside tonite. I wish we could sleep beneath the stars." She murmured.

"Why not?" I looked around us. There were never any visitors. Something made me pause. That man, the one I'd imagined. What if I imagined him again? I caught a sudden chill at the thought. I had heard a poem once, and I tried to remember it…

We both gazed hard at the house then. There was a tree. It was tall and without leaves and seemed about half dead. We had talked about chopping it down. It's thickest branch was now caressing and scratching against the house. I don't know why I noted it. Or I didn't know why, at first.

And it was Regina who said the poem. The very one I had had in my mind.

"_Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today, oh how I wish he'd go away…" _

I saw then that the old blackened tree led right to the window of Regina's sewing room.

Our amorousness died for days after that. I didn't know what I was afraid of and Regina wouldn't confirm anything anyway. She was like the house in that way. When the shutters were on they stayed on until it was time to let a bit of sunlight in.

Her projects intensified. I saw less of her and began to question her sanity at last.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3. **

We worked hard and spoke only of immediate and pressing issues. I learned a bit of carpentry in order to repair a crack in the porch. I learned to cook a little more.

I often wore my rattiest dress when I did my chores in the house. It was torn at the seams up front and it seemed to annoy and fascinate Regina in equal measure.

"I could just tear it off…" This I heard her mutter when she went up stairs for her bath one evening. I had made a soup with dumplings and meat from my journey into the city that day and had changed into that dress while cooking. I had to laugh at her snobbishness—we couldn't all sew dresses like we were off to a French ball…or something…anyway, I ran to wash quickly and change in my room. When I returned to the kitchen, Regina was serving the both of us and looked pleased.

"What do the papers say?" She asked after dinner. I looked at her in her worn rocking chair, me on this sofa I liked to tuck my feet against. Regina looked tired. Really tired. More worn out than usual. I had noted before that her shed let in very little light. If I hadn't seen her in light once or twice I might have thought really strange thoughts about her…

"Well?" She was impatient now.

I flipped open the paper and stared at the print. My aunt had taught me to read when I was very small and although I hadn't done well in schooling, I could get by on what intellect I'd gathered from her.

"A murder in Boston's West side." I sighed. "I swear, the worst things get put out there. Did someone do something nice for someone anywhere in the world? Would it make the news?"

She closed her eyes and chuckled, leaning back against her chair. Her feet were bare and tonite she wore a corset that was loosely bound and made of green soft material on the outside. She had pretty feet. She has pretty feet, I should say.

"What kind of murder?"

She asked the question before I could gasp aloud at what I had already read.

"Bled out…" I added then, "Fifth one these past six months…"

The moment the words were out of my mouth she perked right up. Pale, tired or not, she shot to her feet and demanded that we check the windows again.

Obviously she worried that this string of murders was spreading. I tried to reassure her that we were far from Boston, but she wouldn't listen.

She had something she had to do the next day, so took candles to our separate rooms and said our good byes. I have to admit, crawling in the darkness atop my small bed, that I wished it didn't have to be as such. I just wanted…well I don't know what I wanted. Her. I wanted her.

Then, one July morning when the rains threatened and I had decided to get to the gardening early just in case I ended up trapped indoors again, Regina came tearing from her little blacksmithing house and threw herself at me.

She wore her odd outfit but had already thrown the heavy protective apron off. Her skin was sweaty and when I pressed my lips to her neck—when her arms wound so tightly around me that I could barely breathe—I tasted salt. There were dark streaks across her arms. Our feet were now buried in soil.

"I'm finished." She shouted hoarsely as though she hadn't used her voice all day. She hadn't, in fact, having been up long before I threw together a bit of breakfast for us.

Then she kissed me.

I won't say that this was my first kiss, because it wasn't, but I will say that it felt the way a first kiss should feel. Regina's lips were so soft and so very, very supple. Her mouth was warm and tasted of tea with a hint of the clove bud she sometimes chewed.

I used to kiss girls all the time in the city. There would be dances for boys and girls and for some reason a lot of the girls preferred to sneak off with me rather than with their sweethearts.

Kissing Regina was so much better than a quick and slippery wet stolen kiss in a darkened back room or alley. Her tongue touched mine languidly and sent slow waves of desire through every part of me. I don't know how long we stood in the garden, but the rains came and made our feet muddy even as the waters poured over the sweat and dust from our work. My hands were intent on memorizing the length of Regina's arms as they wound round my neck.

After that she started to talk to me a great deal more.

Not that I wanted to talk at that point, not exactly, not when I felt so much heat and yearning in her presence, but some floodgate had opened and now Regina wanted to know everything about me.

"Tell me how you arrived in America…" Her first question was a good one. I told her about the boat, the savings that had gone into my family's departure, the tragedy of my mother's drowning, and how I'd never heard from my father after that. This conversation happened while we sat on the porch and let our feet cool and rinse off in the rain. Regina fussed over me and smiled sweetly and I laughed at her. "I'm all right." I shrugged. "My aunt was a wonderful woman. My cousins were like siblings to me. They all tolerated my…ummm…eccentricities."

If she noted the tense I used, she didn't let on. Not then. Instead she slid in the question, "…and petty criminal activities?"

I glared at her. But I nodded. "I've been good as of late. Trying to catch other criminals." I didn't ask her how she knew so much about it. It was obvious that my game had been over the second I met her.

"Do you still think me a criminal?" She asked this so innocently.

"Well, you seem to know that your parents were murdered while all others know far less." I said after a long minute had passed.

The sun, I noticed, had peeked from behind a cloud briefly. It was very close to the horizon.

"Inside, now." With that she looked hard at the woods and then ran back into the house, slippery wet feet and all.

"We're muddying up the floors." I protested quietly. Still, washing up in the evening would be better than dealing with whatever had spooked us both.

"To hell with the floors." She cried out, slipping into the table. "Get the shutters."

I blinked and stared at her. Something was really wrong.

"Was it the man?" I asked.

"Don't be dim. Get things ready." She was upstairs by this point, rushing to her rooms to board them up.

I lied to myself a lot in those days. I had always had a hard time with the truth, even though I fancied myself good at telling a lie when it fell from another's lips. I don't know, I guess I was a mess of contradiction. Some people are.

But one thing I couldn't lie to myself about, was the eerie feeling in that damned dark house.

"Where are your parents?" I shouted up the stairs as Regina crashed about.

She threw some choice words my way and made my ears burn. I turned away and started doing what I'd been told. I was furious. And frustrated. I slammed and banged things around much more than I should have.

I didn't move quickly enough.

It was dark outside by now, which made me feel more than a little worried. The front porch sort of bled into the blackness.

I felt as though I was being watched. The wind whistled as I stood at the open door and looked out.

A figure, pale as snow, seemed to flit between the road and the wooden posts at the gate.

I screamed. I couldn't help it. I screamed and I slammed the door and I bolted and boarded it. Then I ran to the last of windows and threw the wooden shutters over them. I screamed more than once, thinking that I had heard something scratching at each pane of glass as I covered it.

Upstairs, Regina continued to walk like an elephant just escaped from some exotic land. I heard her curse and I heard her trip and then I heard nothing…

I took the stairs three at a time.

She was in the sewing room of course, and this time the figure in the window was most certainly not just one of her costumed metal frames.

He smiled at us and he waved as though he knew us both.

What came next, I cannot say. I have to admit that I was quite useless and immediately began to lose my breath and my vision. I took great gulping breaths and then the room's darkness became filled with pinpoints of light. I heard Regina doing what she could to push against the window. I heard her call my name…

When I awoke, I was in a bed much larger than my own.

I immediately began to scream and hands reached in the darkness for me. A match was lit and a candle glowed. Then another was lit from the first and the room was bathed in small dancing flames.

"Emma, Emma, you're fine." It was Regina's voice, of course, and in a moment I could see her face.

"What happened?" I asked, though my tongue felt numb and strange. My head also ached.

"You fell. You fell unconscious and I…" Regina stopped for a moment and wrung her hands with a faint smile. "I managed to throw the boards across the window in time."

"In time for what?" Though I knew already…

"In time to stop Bertrand from entering. He's my cousin you see." Regina's voice cracked. "But you should sleep. Nevermind all of that."

My hand wrenched hers against my chest and I shouted in anguish. I don't know why, it was just shock and some strange energy that surged through me.

"I need you to sleep. To just sleep. We'll discuss it further in the morning." Her hands were sliding over my arms and then she was moving next to me.

We slept pressed together in her bed that night and the night after. Each morning I awoke, I ran blindly into the hallway. It was always empty.

The old tree next to her sewing room came down soon after. That night I tried to sleep in my own bed but kept yelling out for Regina. I imagined her cousin entering the house stealthily, his red eyes flickering in the darkness like candles set to trick us.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4. **

The coming two weeks were terrible. Regina's anguish grew as the days stretched on and on. The nights which began to grow cooler, saw us all cooped up against rains and winds and…

Well…and _Bertrand_.

He continued to knock at the windows when nightfall came.

He also had taken to calling our names from the woods nearest the house.

"Emma," he would sort of howl mockingly, as though my name were a great joke. "You are simply not doing the job I asked you to do!"

You see, the man who was now no longer a man, had been amongst those three who had hired me. I never did meet the mysterious cousin, but here he stood—beside the house, pale as death, shouting silly things at us.

One night he called in through a crack between a wooden board and a window he had cut with his strangely sharpened nail. "_Reginaaaaa_…you know mother would not approve."

Well this drove her nearly mad. She screamed in anger and would not stop and then threatened to go outside! I had to hold her back. I had a fleeting thought then—about something odd in his wording—but I pushed it away.

"Something must be done!" I whispered. "We can't have some walking corpse speak to you in that manner." I sounded absurd, I know. But we were going mad and our days were spent obsessing over small matters as small as a grove in a plank of wood (that might make it weak) or the timing between the horse's exercise and the shifting of the sun beneath sudden clouds.

"We have to cut our days shorter." Regina often said this, but by the time we retired to her bedroom—with its heavily bolted door and much thinner window than those on the main floor—we had gone without sunlight for three days or more. I was becoming inexplicably sad and had even wept over some small thing moments earlier.

She and I were sharing her bed now, but we slept far apart and she did not try to kiss me again. It was my only comfort, laying so close to her at night, so I did not push my luck. Anyway, I was hot and bored and frightened and somehow this all amounted to yearning…

Yearning for what, I did not really understand at the time. Did I say I did not know what I wanted from Regina? Well those are _her_ words…

Sitting next to me by candlelight, many years later, Regina snickers like an idiot and tells me to admit to what I _did not_ once know.

She may have been a woman of the world, once upon a time, but my knowledge was limited to a few stolen kisses.

Anyway, this is neither here nor there. I wanted Regina. I knew that once I had her, I'd know what to do with her.

So there it is, plain as day—even as Regina continues to giggle beside me I am not ashamed.

Back to the damned story now.

In the meantime, our biggest problem was still Bertrand.

He grew bolder as the days grew shorter and even darted out into the sunshine one afternoon when I was exercising our strongest horse.

I screamed, which had become such a frustrating habit, and the horse leapt beneath my hands and…well…this part is harder to tell. Regina still sighs and sometimes even weeps for that horse.

Alexander—this was the horse's name though she was a she and a horse at that—leapt beneath my hands and bolted for the woods.

Bertrand screamed when he ran into the sunlight, but he also leapt upon the horse. The last I saw of them was a puff of grey smoke and a splash of red blood as he sank his teeth into the poor animal's flesh.

That night, Regina did not sleep far from me. She lay fully in my arms and cried so hard she was nearly ill.

"We cannot go on like this." I spoke the next morning as soon as I felt her eyes flutter open. She lay staring at the closed window and sighed and shuffled backwards until we were touching. I realized it then…

Regina Mills had hired me because she was lonely.

All right, so this was obvious. She had posted the stupid advertisement for a cook or cleaner or whatnot with the knowledge that Bertrand and two others were hiring me for other purposes. But why follow through? Why invite me into her home?

How many others had scratched and clawed at the windows, hoping to find their way in?

"What happened to your parents?" I asked her again.

This time she finally answered me.

Of course I did not like what I heard, but I turned and held her and let myself feel all of the things I had felt the moment I laid eyes on her. She did not show me everything, not quite yet, but she told me a fair bit of the story.

It was a terrible tale.

I don't know how to explain what happened to me then. My heart grew for her and my yearning calmed. Her cheeks were wet beneath my palm. I think I may have pledged my life to her then, in that moment.

Well, that is all wonderfully dramatic, I know. Anyhow, that day, things changed for the better despite the horrors that lay ahead.

Later, we took advantage of the heat wave that had kept us from an early Fall. It was still mid-morning and the sky was cloudless.

We undressed by the shimmering edge and while I was modest, Regina was very deliberate in her unveiling. I looked back and though I was distracted as I splashed into the water, I saw her stare hard at the woods.

When she finally slipped into the water with me, she kissed me and nearly drowned us both.

"What is the matter with you?" She dared to ask even as I coughed and choked and slipped on some smooth stone beneath my feet. Her arms wrested upon my shoulders and her hands brushed my wet hair back from my face. When she kissed me again, I was prepared and I lifted her easily and wrapped her legs round my waist.

Then there was that damned Bertrand again. Right at the moment I had discovered how my hands could hold Regina's rear so that she rocked against me in just the right way, that stupid man shouted from the woods,

"Emma now _this_ is certainly not what I hired you for!"

I could not help it, my head was light with other things and I could not be rational enough to even show fear. "Oh shove it up your damned arse!"

This made Regina laugh!

"How dare you!" He screamed some intolerable shrieking sound with each word.

"Ugh." I cleared out one ear with a pinky and grinned. "Sod off, we've already bested you." I muttered.

"Oh no you haven't," He had heard me and said, "and when sun sets I'll tear your house apart and rip out your throats!"

This made Regina stop in her laughter.

What she said next made me so nervous I felt ill. I had a moment of wonder about his hearing. Why was it so sharp? It must have been some damned gift of the damned…

"Come and get us then. Do it now. You have just enough time to reach us at the water, kill us both, and then rush back to the woods. Our blood will heal you and your burns." Her words interrupted my rambling internal thoughts.

The silence then was like an echo of rushing wind.

We made our way quietly out of the water. Regina held my hand. It shook. I shook.

Then I saw him.

He rushed from the woods on the other side of the large pond. He began to smoke and smolder in the sunshine and was about to cross the water—flying as he was an inch above the ground it seemed—when he stopped. His hair, long and silky dark, caught fire just as he searched madly for a way around the water.

"You tricked me!" He could barely shout the words as the rest of him lit up. Still, he seemed determined to come after us.

Regina simply stood, smiled, and waved.

He was reduced to ash in seconds.

I trembled as I watched. My hands did nothing to cover my nudity. I could only gulp and stare. When I looked back over my shoulder, Regina was only staring at me. Her shoulders were red and her eyes were bright. "Really?" My voice squeaked around the word.

"Inside." Regina muttered in my ear then, suddenly quite close. "And yes. Really. Looking at you is far better than looking at my dearly departed...well at Bertrand. Inside. I want you in my bed."

"No, it's lovely out. I want to stay outside." I was arguing at a time like that. Well. Call it nerves.

She won in the end because the stench of Bertrand's death hung in the air still and we both wanted to be away from it.

We found ourselves on the sofa where I usually read the paper. She was all over me, every part of her seemed to want to press to me, and all I could do was hold onto her arms as her lips made marks on my skin.

"I'm quite like this after a good kill." She said heated against my neck.

"What?" I wanted to know—had she done such a thing before? Instead, I let her hitch my leg higher against her waist.

The first time her fingers touched me, they were gentle. They were alien and unfamiliar and that made their stroking even more pleasurable. I held to the top curve of that sofa and cried out again and again while her mouth latched to the tip of my breast and her fingers circled over my heated flesh. Then she climbed over me and put her legs on either side of my hips and it was suddenly my turn to touch her. I didn't know what I was doing but I put my hand between us and she shuddered as she kissed me. She was wet and her scent made me light headed and made me want her more…

She laughed then and rested against me. Her fingers drew lazy patterns over my chest as her cheek lay on my shoulder.

We were free for a time. She would say things like "they'll leave me alone after this." And I would play stupid and pretend that she didn't do this sort of thing—kill vampires and such—in a regular way so much so that she could chart the movement of the sun and the moon by such occasions. That first day we ate our dinner on the porch and then took her remaining horse for a ride along the dirt road. She rode and I walked beside and then watched when she sped up.

She pulled me atop the horse, just behind her, and I pulled her close. My cheek rested against her back and I nearly lulled myself to sleep when I spotted a house in the distance. It was quite large and dark.

"Who lives there?" I asked.

"Not a living soul. Not even the dead live there. It is quite empty now." Regina smiled at these words and then we rode in the opposite direction.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5. **

She still would not tell me what project had filled her time in that old shed. In fact the next day saw very little change from the days before Bertrand's destruction.

I'll admit it confused me when Regina first suggested that I sleep in my own bed again. I grumbled and pouted and she sighed and put down her paper and finally gave in. "I'd rather court you," I thought I heard her mutter these words but perhaps she said something else.

On the other hand, when we did share a bed, I did so only for comfort.

We were completely out of sync. Our evenings were filled with a strange dance. Regina would work on her sewing during the late afternoon hours. Then she would show off her accomplishments while I read voraciously. I'll admit that my passions had waned—not because I didn't still see the beauty in Regina, but because I was terrified for our wellbeing.

"There are creatures at every gate, waiting to destroy us." I whispered to her one night, well after she had gone to bed, and moments after I had crawled in after her. She was cool to the touch—it was a cold night and the fire had stayed low—and I shivered against her skin.

"I won't let them get to you." She yawned and pulled me near so that when she fell asleep again, her cheek was pressed to my shoulder.

I would see her look at me in my riding boots and men's pants and suspenders, and she would swallow hard and touch her throat in a fleeting way. Nevertheless, I stayed up later and later, reading more and more and taking careful notes about the creatures I learned to loathe.

The vampires were mainly men that came from the wealthier families but had wandered and sought power in strange places. I became obsessed with them. I wanted to know who they were and how long they had gone on doing…whatever it was they did. Did they only bite people? Did they bleed them dry? Well I knew some of those answers, but did they change everyone they bit or bled dry?

"Emma Swan! Put those books down at once!" One afternoon Regina threw down her sewing and stormed into the kitchen. She threw tea cups onto a tray and hot water from the stove put it all in front of me. "Carmilla is a silly story. It has nothing to do with the things we face." The magazine I had been reading was taken from my hands and thrown into the fire.

"Regina!" I scrambled to retrieve the paper but nearly toppled boiled water on my legs. She yanked me back quick as lightening and the water splashed harmlessly next to the chair. I blinked then, seeing nothing but the spots of the fire and the darkness of the room. "Well then." And like that, my energy drained from me.

"You're exhausted. You've slept three, perhaps four hours a night." Regina was gentler now. She poured the tea and pulled her old chair to where I sat. I wanted her next to me suddenly and shifted aside. She hesitated. If she didn't want to sit in the spot I insistently patted, if it because this was the place where she had first taken me, well I didn't care. "I'm sorry." She said, finally sitting next to me. It was fine. She could be very bossy. I found it sort of charming most of the time.

We drank our tea and watched as shadows crept upon the walls.

"Wouldn't it be nice to leave the shutters off for once?" I wondered aloud. Her hand squeezed my leg and she frowned and said something about the moonlight.

Something about her touch calmed me.

Still, I was full of questions.

"How did you know I was coming here to spy on you?" I still wanted to know this and I wanted to know what it had to do with the vampires.

"Emma…" She said my name again, this time with exasperation. "Can we not have a nice evening…" Something in her tone sounded defeated. "No, I suppose we cannot." Then she was on her feet again, black and green trimmed dress and corset flashing beautifully in dying light. She took care of our security all on her own and then went wordlessly up to bed.

An hour later, I walked quietly up the stairs as I always did, and I changed at the edge of the bedroom, cloaked in darkness. Only this time, I didn't bother to cover myself. I could not stand the thought of her anger.

When I slid into the coolness of the bed, her warmth was there to greet me. She wasn't angry at all, only worried. Worried about me—to a degree that would only make sense later.

"Emma…" she just said my name yet again and cupped my cheek. That was all. Yet it was enough to make my pulse race. I awoke to her at last.

As I stripped her, I straddled her waist. She squirmed. There were candles by the bedside and I only had to lean a little to the right to strike matches and light our way. She shifted again until I was lower and pressed not her waist but her sex. Even when I tried to guide events, she took them over instead.

I leaned to kiss her and moved my hips, pressing down while she pressed up. This was not enough, even as I felt pleasure building, I needed her touch in deeper places.

She stared, fascinated at the fair curls between my thighs, at the bead of what looked like dew in the groove of flesh that yielded warmly against her fingertips as she gently drew me apart and pressed. I eased one shaking leg from her and fell to my back. She followed me, latching her mouth to my breast and then throat and then my lips again, while her fingers eased inside of me and burned and ached and dug into some place deep inside that needed even more…

Then I was melting, sharp heat, thrumming beat as her thumb gently explored the wetness that seemed to seep from me at an alarming rate. I cried out, Regina's mouth heated against my shoulder, her own neck arching and her hands trembling as I called her name.

The next morning saw me up at sunrise. Even before she was awake I bounded from the bed, threw on my shirt and slacks and ran downstairs. It took me all of twenty minutes to pick the last of the flowers lining our gardens for her breakfast table and another twenty to get the place tidied and gussied up. When the wooden planks came down from the windows and sunshine finally bled in, she came walking down with a dazed look in her eye. I had to smile. She had put on another of my shirts and wore nothing beneath it. Still, she merely blinked and yawned when I moved to her and swung her from that last stair.

"Good morning." I kissed her neck and smelled her unique scent. This seemed to annoy her which amused me.

"It's too early to be sniffing me." Her arms came around my shoulders. Her guard was down so I took advantage.

"We have work to do. Well I have work to do. I've spent too much time worrying lately. I have to clean and chop wood and attend to your needs." I lifted her easily and kissed her chin this time.

"Attend to my needs? What needs?" Her eyes were bleary and her hair was tossled and I think I loved her more than I had ever loved another human being in that moment. She kissed me full on the mouth and laced her fingers through my blonde locks that were in need of cutting.

Her toes were pointed and barely touching the floor when I moved my hands over her bare buttocks. "Oh." She gasped. "_Those_ sorts of needs." I let her down an inch or two and locked our eyes. "Well, you did fall asleep before I could find satisfaction." Her tone was amused but I growled and smacked her lightly.

"So sorry. You wore me out. Not my fault." I was loosing my breath now. She felt like silk and I wanted more. I knelt and leaned her back against a chair, then pushed her gently into it and spread her thighs with my hands.

The first taste of her on my tongue was sharp and savory and made my mouth water. My tongue was flat and insistent and she had to clasp the back of my head to direct me.

"Oh yes. Emma, yes…" She kept saying things like this and watching as I pressed my mouth to her sex. There were ridges and smooth places and small nooks wetter than others. It all seemed very complicated and it was making my head light to continue. I pulled back breathless only to feel her hand nudge me insistently again.

When she shuddered and her back arched and I could run a hand from her hip to her breast, I knew I would want to do this complicated act again. Many, many times.

"I have to go for more supplies. We're all out of those little red potatoes you like. Among many other things" I panted and rested my mouth against her thigh, secretly wiping moisture against her. She laughed at me and I smiled quite stupidly. Her palm cupped my chin.

"I want you, I don't want potatoes." Came her reply. Her hands smoothed down and over my ribs, stopping at my breasts and playing distractedly with the hardened tips of them. I squirmed. Not because I didn't love her touch, but because I was suddenly worried about our food supply. We still had things from the garden, but what if it wasn't enough and what if the bad weather hit early this year? With all of the fearful hiding and holing ourselves up, we had begun to burn through items I usually tried to keep in abundant supply. I calmed my mind long enough to let Regina press me to the wooden floor.

All in all it was a very lovely day…

I left early the next morning, when the sun was spread wide enough to chase demons from my path. There were pantry supplies and items we had not grown that we needed in abundance. Regina also wanted jellies and other preserves we had not myself known how to make in those days. There were dried meats to gather up and some salted fish I needed from a particular corner of the city.

It took me all day to do my chores. Also, I had not accounted for the _shortening_ of the days, so I was a good half hour off of my estimated time of departure.

"Really…" I muttered to myself as I headed back. Someone caught my eye in that moment, just as I was chastising myself further. He stood on a familiar corner—I will not say _how_ familiar—and blended into the white washed brick behind him.

He was tall and fair. His eyes flashed blue in a crowd that milled about outside a small pub. It was strange, but he looked like Bertrand. Only a fair version of Bertrand. Not at all like the olive skinned, dark eyed relatives in Regina's pictures. Also, he could not have been a vampire, because it was still bright out. I turned my horse on the cobblestone and made my way down a side alley I knew well.

Which, as it turned out, was a terrible idea.

The man caught up to me, you see, on account of the narrow space and crowded streets.

"Ms. Swan?" He knew my name.

"Yes?" I tried to look tough, but my skirts and corsets made me feel tight and contained.

"Do tell Ms. Mills—if you see her, of course…" He paused then and grinned and I saw that he had three gold teeth.

"Tell her what? Get out of my way." I sent my horse off again but the man leapt in front of us and held up a hand.

"Simply tell her the masters will be visiting quite soon." He shouted these words and when I looked back after finally passing him, he had retreated to shadow with a pained look on his face. Perhaps he was a vampire after all, if only half formed or something along those lines.

His words haunted me. Not because of the threat once I reached the old house, but because of the possibility that I might not reach it at all. He had wasted precious minutes of my day. I was all turned around from the streets I had to take out of town again.

I still was not a strong rider, but the horse seemed to sense my anxiety. I pushed and pushed and drove my horse to exhaustion, speeding through smaller and small roads until I ended up on the dirt road that was a good hour from home.

One hour was one hour too many.

The first of the creatures that attacked me came stealthily. He simply slid next to me in my carriage and laughed as I screamed at him.

There is a memory, now, of that night, when the last of the sunlight streaked across red eyes and turned their outer edges to crumbling grey ash. This was the fate of the first of the creatures that attacked me that night. He flew away and hit the dirt and I did not see him again.

The howling and screeching had begun many minutes before, and my cheeks were already wet with tears when the second of the demons leapt upon my horse and leaned to bite into him.

I don't know quite what happened next, but there were the hooves of another horse in the distance…

That much I could hear…

And then there was a flash of light. And in that light was the woman I desperately wanted to return home to.

My horse was not harmed as Regina cut down the vampire on its back with a long sword made of the silver that had first indicated her presence.

"Ride faster my darling!" She shouted at me and cut down something that tried to fly at her, only to be repelled by sun rays reflected from the strange armor Regina wore. Her outfit was mostly black—a dark men's jacket that fit her form perfectly—but there were silver weavings throughout and a vest of layers upon layers of silver. I now knew she had fashioned it herself all those afternoons in isolation.

The vampires around us began to scream with laughter. They called me 'darling' as well and they told me to ride faster while they stood upon my carriage.

Though they were toying with us, I knew all at once that we had the upper hand.

In total, there were four of the creatures and even in the faint light, smoke still rolled from their flesh. At the pace Regina had driven me to, we were less than half an hour away from safety. The creatures believed us defeated so they let us ride awhile while they laughed and leapt about.

One flew through the air at Regina and she cut it's damned head off.

That shut up the rest.

All three jumped toward me at once then, but I leaned forward and down and spurred the horse faster. Like I said, I wasn't much of a rider but for that moment the horse and I were as one. Beside us, Regina stood on her saddle and jumped in the air like a bloody fool.

Another vampire fell, this time neatly cutting in half as Regina swept past him and into the seat beside me.

She had an anvil of some kind and handed it to me.

Her horse was apparently trained to help us as well. It's hooves dug up dust and dirt as he bolted in front of us.

My anvil swung and a male vampire with hair as red as my old friend Jon's once was, burst like a rotten apple against my hand. Blood was everywhere, coating my arms and soaking my hair.

Regina finished two off in one fell swoop. Their heads rolled on the road before bursting into flame.

The cool night air made my lungs ache and I realized that I had begun to sob uncontrollably. Some dark memory had begun to surface and I could not contain the wrenching pain. Regina took the reigns from me and I leaned over the side and tried to control my sickness.

Sickness would be the victor either way.

By the time Regina got us home again, I was shaking and soaked in sweat and blood. She locked our supplies away with the horses and left me on our front step clutching my weapon still.

"Others may come tonite, I cannot be certain. We'll unpack in the morning." She uttered these words as she drew water for a bath. I sat in misery and watched her wrench the handle she had designed herself for our well.

Then I wondered: when had it become _our_ anything? Our home. Our water. Our food. Everything was hers. I had lost everything years before.

I felt defeated. And cold.

She pulled me into the house and threw the bolts she had designed. I was led upstairs and urged to undress. My blood soaked clothes were tossed into a fireplace that Regina already had lit. Indeed she had lit up the entire house. I had already noted the raging fire in the parlor and the heat from the kitchen.

"Did you drag coal ev-ev-everywhere?" I saw tracks of black from where she was rushing up and down the stairs with pots of hot water. I would have to clean it all up in the morning and for some reason this worried me. Could we keep up with it all?

No matter how hot the water of my bath could be, I could only shiver and stare blankly ahead of me. Even after Regina crawled in—I was not consoled. Her arms were strong around me. Her hands gentle as they washed my weak limbs.

"Tell me what happened to your remaining relatives. How did you end up alone?" Regina's voice droned toward me from the outer reaches of the universe.

I spoke through gritted teeth but I still could not stop myself from stuttering. "You want me to say it? To what end? To cure m-m-my i-i-lls? They killed them! The vampires! You know it!"

I splashed out of the bath and stumbled naked and wet to the bed.

For seven days, I refused to do more than sleep. Curled in a ball, mired in my own misery, I lay with fever and a weight on my chest.


	6. Chapter 6

I fell into illness and a fever that lasted for many days. At night, I slept deeply and dreamt about strange things. Sometimes I dreamt that Regina had turned into a vampire and was coming for me, telling me 'it's all right, you can join me in this…' Only I would find that she was really just stroking me and telling me that it was generally going to be all right.

Well. Anyway. I was often confused like this.

During the daylight hours, I would gaze at the iron bars with their silver threads that Regina had fastened to the windows. Regina would bring me food that would go untouched.

Somehow, I still felt light enough to wake early each morning, though I quickly sunk into self-pity.

I was wallowing. And beside me, Regina grew more and more weary of my lethargy and general ennui.

"What's ennui?" I would ask as she covered her hands and feet with strange oils before she retired to bed.

"You know damn well. I need you to stop all of this. And very soon." She would crawl into bed with me while maintaining her distance. It was petulance and revenge, all rolled into one.

The new window attachments allowed a great deal of sunshine to enter the bedroom we now shared. As a result, I could see the dust that accumulated through my sickness. Dust and darkness blanketed my life.

Of course Regina would say, "You're not really ill you know, you're just avoiding the subject at hand," but I would ignore her.

I really did have a fever for some time, and I really was ill, but the things Regina made for us to eat cured my ailments. It did amuse me a little, to see her take such care with preparing meals as I had done.

After that, I was simply unable to get out of bed. Some people would call it depression nowadays…

"You have to get up." Regina finally said one morning, perched on the edge of our bed, wearing only the smile she was born with. I watched her run a cloth over her arms and legs. The curves of her back were artistry. One wary eye regarded me as she craned her neck. "You have to get up and you have to wash yourself. Also, I cannot keep up with the housework. Look at this place. Emma, are you listening?"

"Yes." I would murmur. But then I would fall asleep and wake again only when she clomped back up the stairs and brought me things to entice my alertness. Once, I wept because we had no honey and I liked it in my tea.

Regina worried that I might not snap out of it. Finally she sent for a doctor. He came into the house, discussed the problem with me, and told her that I should be brought to a place where a full team of doctors might help me to deal with my mind's breakages.

Well. Regina thanked him for his advice and promptly barred him from our home.

Then she did something that changed it all for me.

It was her outfit. Something she wore one morning while she prepared for the day ahead.

"Why those dark leathers? You look as though you're jousting in some medieval contest." I blinked. Then I swallowed hard. Her collar was like the one she had worn that day I was attacked.

"I have errands to run." She said this hurriedly, as though to trick me with the speed of her words. As Regina tied her boots, I saw her throat working as though she might be nervous.

"Errands?" I knew damn well what was going on. "Wait, no, you have to help me. I wish to bathe."

This made her stomp her feet and turn on me. But I was already on my knees and I had slipped free of my sleeping garments.

"I…I have things I must do…" She swallowed hard as I slid over to her and deposited myself in her lap.

"Don't worry. I'm feeling better." I promised. It was cold out and we were only weeks away from the first snowfall, but I wanted a trip to the lake.

She indulged me in my request, but insisted on dragging along a thick grey and red blanket. The waters were dark and they bit at my ankles when I waded in, making my toes numb.

"Go quickly. It's good for you, but not if you dawdle." Regina waited by a crooked tree, kicking dirt and pretending not to be entranced by my naked beauty. She chuckled when I accused her of it. Still, she looked worried. It was early in the day and there was plenty of time for her 'errand' but I was dawdling on purpose.

It was shocking and to immerse myself at last, but somehow the water seemed less ominous than it once had. When I emerged, cold and shivering, Regina wrapped me in a blanket and pulled me against her.

"Have you ever thought about it?" I asked. My palms moved up and down her boots as she pulled me closer to her body. "You know what I speak of." I liked the smell of leather on her.

"Don't ask that." Her mouth pressed to my head as she whispered. "Don't ask me to consider such a thing." I felt her tears on my shoulder.

"How can I avoid it?" I turned and faced her, still in the blanket, but now angled so that I could push her against the tree.

"You have to listen to me, Emma…" She begged me, even as I started to plant kisses along her neck. Even as my hips began to move against the center seam and buttons of her trousers. "I meant to protect you," She gasped as I sucked harder and made a purple mark on her skin. "I brought you here to protect you…"

"You already knew about my family?" I had guessed, but the extent of the truth was still unknown to me then. I unbuttoned her shirt and nudged the material aside. Her peaks were darker than my own and they pebbled against my tongue when I moved back and forth between them. She was impossibly soft beneath the curve of her breast. Regina let me indulge for long moments before gently pushing me away.

"They had marked you. The vampires, I mean." She pulled the blanket over me and grabbed at my hips—perhaps to slow my movements, or perhaps to control them. "I saw you and I…" Her palms squeezed my curves and she pushed me against one strong thigh. I sighed and leaned forward, rolling my hips, suddenly wanting release as well as distraction.

"You saw me?" I was breathless, and close to tumbling over the edge, but I stopped moving.

She nodded slowly.

"Well." This confused me. Also I was becoming cold.

"Let's go back inside." She hesitated. "Then I need to take care of something at the Wayne Farm."

"What do you have to do there?" I stretched and allowed the blanket to fall away. Her eyes and then her fingertips caressed me for some time, until I began to move against her again. "I'd rather you not go, whatever it is that you think you must do…"

"I have to kill a group of vampires which call themselves the Masters. They've been hiding out there." She said these words so matter-of-factly, even as she rose to meet me, nuzzling my neck and slipping a finger inside of my wet, clenching sex. I thrust against her, my knees pressing into the cold ground on either side of her hips.

"Wait, what did you mean before?" I let her growl with frustration because it couldn't meet mine anyhow. "You saw me, you chose me?"

"There are things I have to show you." She pulled d me up and made me hold onto the tree behind her while she used her tongue in wicked ways. "Later." She added, pulling back to puff warm air on the short hairs of my sex.

I think I must have cried out two or three times, losing my senses at her enthusiastic ministrations. I suppose she was relieved that I was well again.

An hour later, I dressed and prepared myself for the day ahead. I had persuaded Regina to rest in preparation for her strange duel. My first order of business was to lock her in our room. Second only to that task, I intended on breaking down the false wall she had obviously hidden her parents within. I was partway through this task when Regina came crashing out of our room and into the hallway. She was furious. She called me a few choice words. I was, according to her, a total lunatic at this point…

"Well then!" I exclaimed. "Herein lies the evidence!"

"Evidence of what that you do not already know?" Her voice was a low growl.

I was being absurd and I knew it. "Did you kill my aunt?"

"My mother killed your aunt. Now stop this. You don't want to see whatever it is that is in that room." She wrenched the hammer from my weakened hands.

"Don't go…" I slumped against the wall and whispered the words. "Please…"

But she was already gone.

Her boots were loud on the stairs. Then her favored horse's hooves moved as loud as approaching thunder as I ran after her, out the front door, down the road.

I did not see her again for quite some time.


	7. Chapter 7

On the first evening of Regina's absence, it rained so hard I kept mistaking the sound for her horse's hooves. Her lack of care—and instruction—bothered me less, at first, than it should have. I thought she had some plan and that I'd soon be brought into its fold. While I waited, I wandered through the hallways with my candle lit, and argued quietly with myself. Should I smash in that false wall? Should I wait for Regina to tell me the truth?

The second path was a much easier path. Waiting and waiting and letting Regina take the lead won out.

Still, I had time to waste. Shutting myself up inside with only a fire to keep me company made me wish I'd taken our remaining mare to the city and shacked up there instead. I craved human company. A pint of lager, a stolen smoke, even unfamiliar faces, all just to give me some way of dealing with nerves and loneliness.

I slept on the couch. When I awoke, the inside of my mouth felt like I'd swallowed razor blades, so I saw to my own cleanliness. It was early morning by the time I wandered outside in the riding boots Regina had given me as a gift one afternoon. Beside a book about the arts of spotting demons in daylight and killing the dreaded vampire by nightfall—one which I felt curious enough to read through for a full hour—I'd also found her stash of mouthpieces and cigarettes and I was enjoying one just by the barn, when the urge hit me like wildfire. It was the sight of the barn where Regina's horse should have been and where my horse now waited, that sent me on my journey. I could suddenly not bear the thought of that horse all along without its mate.

So we left together, that lonely horse and I, and we were half a mile from the property when it occurred to me that I still had no way of knowing where Regina might be. The wind was cold and the road had been washed over with rain the night before. I felt a chill in my bones and decided then that this would be my guide. I would follow that chill until I found the death mongers that had distracted Regina from her life with me.

The Masters had to have been amongst the wealthiest in our area. I rode along for miles, peering at weathered farmhouses, mansions, scattered shacks even—just in case something caught my attention. There was dampness on the long grass that brushed against my foot whenever I rode close to a dwelling. I had thrown on the dark, oil covered jacket which Regina had procured from a man in Boston, and I wore a black, woolen hat. My pants were not warm enough and I began to feel pins and needles in my thighs after what amounted to three hours of riding.

Finally, however, I saw something that captured my interest. It was a piece of red thread, much like something from one of Regina's dresses. She wasn't, of course, _wearing_ a dress that day, but sometimes when she worked, she spread those threads around without realizing. It usually annoyed me. In this instance, I nearly wept for joy at the sight of it.

Then I saw the house. It was a grey and black monstrosity that lay cold and still in the distance, that drew real interest. The horse I rode seemed equally curious. She kept snorting and shaking her head, turning sideways then twisting herself around again in a half circle. We were both looking for our other halves and we had likely found them. Of course the lack of smoke in the chimney gave something away. On such a cold and rainy day, what creatures would care so little about warmth and light?

But then, off to the left of us, I saw a dark form that threw me into a complete state of panic.

Regina's horse. Wandering up and down dirt roads. Completely alone. I whistled and she broke into a quick trot.

"Dammit!" I swore as tears pricked my eyes. "What have you done you stupid, stupid woman?" Well, she wasn't stupid, of course. Regina was too damned smart for her own good.

I had not read anything that mentioned vampires sleeping on days when it was cloudy enough to block out all sunlight, and I would not have the answer to such a riddle for some time, but I took my chances. I first tied our horses together and begged them to stay quiet. Then I crept up the rocky terrain to the house.

Sometimes fates smile on us when we take such great steps all on our own. I knew this much, because when I was a moment away from stepping up to the strange, stone dwelling, the clouds parted slightly.

Though the slivers of sunlight that kissed the toes of my boots, I saw some faint hope. Well, whatever, I was being melodramatic, but the events that followed completely justified my silliness.

The door I used was narrow and made of wood, and it led to the hole in the ground that mortals would have used for…well, mortal needs. I had to step over that hole and use another door that I later learned had been left open for me by Regina herself.

The Masters had indeed retired for the day, but they had left their latest victim on display for any who dared to invade their wretched dwelling. I found her in the third room on my left, still on the first floor. This was a blessing, certainly, and one the idiot vampires had not thought through well enough. If they had chosen the second floor for their trap, we never would have made it out alive.

Regina had been tied to a large wooden chair. Upon first glance, I thought she was sleeping. Her chest was moving rapidly but her chin was touching it and her hair obscured her face. She seemed to be wet. Her normally straight hair, with its occasional errant wave, hung over her face in dark tangled curls.

It was not water, of course, that covered her. When she raised her chin to look at me, I saw pinkish watery blood, with some smears of darker material as though someone had used their fingertips to paint her in ghoulish patterns.

Her eyes were wild and looked at me as though I might satiate some deep hunger.

I already knew about the cleansing properties of fire, but I also knew that it could not be this damned easy. The first whisper of laughter in the dim room alerted me to this fact. Beside Regina there lay a torch, soaked and useless, and behind her, an empty and cold fireplace. The walls of the room were damp and covered in white blooming mold.

But what I had taken from the barn—what had been left for me—would burn easily. Untying Regina was the first step and I made quick work of it with a knife I had stashed in my boot. As for the rest…

Flint, some say, has magical as well as practical uses. Regina's book had outlined both properties. There was also a third use for the flint I had found. And when the first creature crept up behind me, I spun on my heel and put the jagged point into its cold, deadened heart. As it roared at me, covering my hand and arm with sputtering, spurting black blood, I took the papers I had crumpled beneath my jacket and went to work sparking it into flame. The chair I freed Regina from made good kindling and even better stakes. When the second vampire came for me, crawling on the ceiling and hissing about my imminent demise, I was able to use a splintered leg to jab its eyes out. This didn't actually suit my needs entirely, so I lit the rest of the chair using some of the kerosene I had also snuck away.

While I did this, I'll admit—Regina was little help. In fact she kept gnashing at me and howling. It was disconcerting. I even found myself shouting at her to be quiet. I also kept Regina's hands tied up because she was dangerous now that her Masters were trying to make me into a good first meal for her.

The chair burned well and in the end the floor and ceiling did also. Once I had lit the room, I yanked Regina to her feet, and slammed us out of the window, shoving my shoulder through the glass.

Then Regina went mad, tried to bite me, her teeth gnashing against my shoulder but failing to break through my jacket, until I had to actually use that jacket to cover her from remnants of sunlight.

I had no way of knowing which creature had changed Regina into her fledgling state. Something—or someone—burst through the roof of the house. It quickly turned to ash. Another figure, smoldering, screeching, followed us through the window. His hands extended like claws, grasping for the flailing woman in my arms, and then his skull exploded and all at once Regina was mine again. She calmed instantly. I didn't dare to look at her though but simply heaved her over one shoulder and made my way to the horses.

It wasn't until we were back home, and Regina was laying silent and still in the bath, that I realized how badly I was shaking. I was also angry. I was outside, having decided to chop wood, when the rain began again. I think I was screaming the whole time I worked.

"Emma, darling, please…" Regina begged me to forgive her, but I couldn't speak to or even look at her. She was clean and bare and safe in our bed by the time I hauled in all of the wood, so I let her sleep without my warmth. I locked us inside and sat all night with our only gun, faced the front door, and waited for the worst.

The next morning saw me perched on the edge of our bed. Regina was startled but seemed relieved now that I was at least acknowledging her presence again.

Our lunch that afternoon was a kind of soup she particularly liked, with dumplings and other things, and I wordlessly invited her to join me downstairs. We ate in silence and watched as rain turned to large flakes of snow. "I love the snow." She said quietly. "I'm glad I get to see this in the daylight."

When we finished lunch, she handed me another of her surprises. Her lips hovered near my ear and she said, "Follow me" and promptly walked upstairs.

We went to that false wall, where Regina knocked her knuckles against four precise points on the brick, and then went to work prying at the crack that revealed itself.

I pulled on it as well and soon we had the wall—door, really—wide open.

The inside of the small room was lit by a narrow red paned window, with an image of a tree. "It's an apple tree, my mother's favorite." Regina murmured. A dozen cylindrical containers sat side by side, each one marked by the same tree outline, each surrounded by candles that had long since burnt out.

"My family." Regina smiled sadly at the ashes of her loved ones. "One of my cousins was among the first vampires to ever exist."

"So you lied about how new this all was to you…still, that's sort of impressive." I sniffed. It really was. Regina came from a long line of vampire hunters and an even longer line of vampires. The choice, it seemed, was always there for her. She could pick a side without consequence. The problem was that she was so good at what she did, that whatever family had her skills and luck at their disposal would likely win the larger war. She had chosen the side of Good—except she had never really gotten over the unreality of the false divide _between_ Evil and Good. It still seemed a game to her. Until I had come along…

"Seeing you struggle for my life…" Regina shivered and paused. "I don't know. I think I grew hopeful."

"Hmmmm…" I scowled at her. "What would I have done without you?"

"I honestly do not know. I am completely irreplaceable." Regina's smile when she turned to me then was utterly charming. She blinked and I frowned harder but it didn't last long.

For the second time in a matter of days, I threw her over one shoulder and stomped into our bedroom. This time, when I got her under the covers, I joined her. She smoothed her hands over my jaw and neck and shoulders. Then I pinned her beneath me and kissed her again and again until she promised me to stop doing foolish things. "I love you…" I said it more than once, letting myself melt into her until she gave in with a sigh and said the same in return.

In the evening, I leapt out of bed and threw on only my boots, before feeding the main fireplaces in our room, downstairs, and in the woodstove. Then I returned to bed, shivering and covered in goosebumps, while Regina laughed at me. She made up for it by pressing against my body, warming me as she kissed her way down my thighs. I watched the snow continue to fall and when my body arched and bowed against her lips and hands, I felt a happiness that was completely uncomplicated.

That day, we talked about our future together. It was just like those silly stories of romance. Two lovers, tangled up in blankets, with the bitter and cold world kept at bay. I could go on about that time. It lasted beautifully. It was decadent. I loved Regina and she loved me so completely, so fully.

And then, of course, the world invaded our peaceful dwelling. Newspapers told of war. People moved in all around us. The air and water changed.

When illness came for me, sometime in my 30s, all of our idealism bled away.

**Epilogue. **

Of course the choices we made were predictable right from the start of this story.

It remains completely understandable if the reader needs to roll her eyes or dismiss this as some cliché about two people who refused to live and die and carry on like normal people should…

You have to understand: we were two people who had never known happiness. And then when we found happiness, it was all so fleeting.

Besides, if the bombs that threaten to wipe out human existence were actually to be launched (and this is still a threat in the year 2013 as it was fifty years ago), we will still perish with the rest of you. We are still susceptible to death's unwavering presence…

After sharing the vile of Regina's cousin's blood, we died, and then we lived, and now we live on and on and on without change.

We moved from town to town. Our latest town saw Regina as some strict-as-nails small time Mayor.

In the meantime, I took to my role as Sheriff quite well.

We would move on when we have to, but in Storybrooke, Maine, the townspeople all thought us to be fully human. We didn't even live together, not openly, because if we did, the people we brought home would draw suspicion. Some even mistook the bickering that is an inevitable part of a relationship which had lasted over a century, for actual animosity. We sometimes 'dated' other people—or at least this is what it seemed like to others. The truth is that we simply fed from other people. Of course. What else could we do? We couldn't feed off of animals, it wasn't sustenance enough. Our humans lost their memories of those nights and spoke to no one—sort of like getting blackout drunk and being too embarrassed to admit it.

In the meantime, we made excuses to see one another. In her office, in mine. Once, fairly recently, I picked her up in the yellow VW bug I stole from a mortal named Neal, and took her to the water. I think we made love in the back of that car for most of the night.

Sharing blood from the world's oldest vampire had its perks. When the sun came up, we were able to stay and watch it.

Most nights, when we didn't need to feed, I visited her in the mansion she procured from an aging distant relative now buried respectfully in the basement somewhere after a final (and peaceful) feeding.

On one such night, I quickly leapt up the tree beside her window and gracefully let myself in.

"Dammit, Emma, this isn't fucking Twilight." Regina's first words to me that day were this growling, cranky reprimand.

I ignored it. Regina hated Twilight more than she hated most things. I stretched out beside her in bed and watched as she applied her pointless moisturizers. She liked the scent of them, as did I, but her skin was perfection and had remained so for decades.

"I missed you today." I hated the whine in my voice that sometimes accompanied such sentiments. I worried, often, that I needed Regina more than she needed me. We were working on this part of our relationship. Instead of snapping at me or saying something sarcastic, Regina sighed and turned to give me a proper kiss.

"Sorry my love." She purred against my lips. It worked every time.

"I'm a sucker for you, Regina Mills." I lifted her easily and lay beneath her, still wearing my boots, which I knew bothered her so I quickly kicked them off.

"I had to eat the mailman today." Then it was Regina's turn to whine.

"You what?" I squeaked. "How…what…what am I supposed to do about that…"

"Nothing, he was a hunter. The good news is that I'm satiated for at least a week." Her tongue was cool against the shell of my ear. "No one will miss him. You'll simply plant evidence that he was a child murderer, just come into town, and that you were on his trail." Then her lips trailed over my throat and her pointed teeth bit me lightly before she lifted away momentarily. "Besides, I left some of him in the fridge for you."

I paused, still trying to figure out what kind of 'evidence' I would plant. And for whose sake? And wouldn't a child murderer draw the attention of authorities beyond my ranking? What the _hell _was Regina thinking?

"Wait…" I asked. "Ummm…a week's worth for me as well?" No more 'dates' or late night thirsts. I had Regina all to myself for the week as well. Her eyes glowed when she caught my smile. I smiled in return and held her close.

**The sort of maybe end!**


End file.
